So uh, are you still keeping up with your daily Wordle? Five months on from the everyday puzzle game hitting the scene, Wordle remains as popular as ever, having spawned multiple other clones too such as a BM version of Wordle and even a Wordle for music. However, arguably the biggest change Wordle had happened in February when The New York Times (NYT) purchased it for an undisclosed figure believed to be in the ‘low-seven figures’. NYT certainly doesn’t seem like they regret it though, as they highlight the runaway success Wordle has been in their 2022 first quarter results.
According to a press release by the news giant, The New York Times believes that they’re doing pretty well thanks to not just the acquisition of Wordle but also that of The Athletic Media Company. Overall, their operating profit nosedived from USD51.7 million to USD6.3 million, but they do now own The Athletic and Wordle. They also had some particularly glowing words to say about Wordle, which NYT believes has brought tens of milllions of users to NYT’s website, with a bunch of them also hanging around to play their other games. This gave The New York Times one of the best quarters in terms of users playing their games, with a total of 9.1 million subscribers and a net gain of 387,000 net digital subscribers this quarter.
As NYT’s president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien puts it:
“We’re off to a strong start on the next phase of our strategy, which is to become the essential subscription for every English-speaking person seeking to understand and engage with the world… While we experienced real momentum in news, it was not the only driver of strength in the quarter.
Wordle brought an unprecedented tens of millions of new users to The Times, many of whom stayed to play other games which drove our best quarter ever for net subscriber additions to Games,” – Meredith Kopit Levien, President and CEO of The New York Times Company
If you’re still doing your Wordle these days, you might’ve noticed some ads by The New York Times asking you to try out their other games. These include Spelling Bee, Gameplay Stories and of course their famous crossword puzzles too. However, NYT’s purchase of Wordle hasn’t gone totally well with everyone, as despite promising to keep Wordle as it is, they did end up making some changes. This includes the phasing out of certain offensive and obscure words from the possible list of answers in an effort to keep it as accessible as possible to users. Some users also reported their stats disappearing during Wordle’s transition to the New York Times website.
As for those of you who somehow haven’t heard of Wordle (where have you been) or haven’t played it before, you can click here to try out the puzzle game for yourself.
